I went into this book blind. I didn’t know anything about the author—I just knew it was about Butler and the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The opening caught me completely by surprise and immediately hooked me. I mean, George Washington nearly getting shot in the right ear near Butler, PA? How could I not keep reading?

That said, only about 15% of the book actually focused on the assassination attempt and its aftermath. The rest felt like the author bloviating about their personal connection to Trump and justifying their evolution into a MAGA supporter. Still, I trudged through and finished it.

While I don’t agree with the author politically, I did find their insights on why Pennsylvania has shifted away from the Democratic Party thought-provoking. It made me reflect on my own values and question why I identify as a Democrat. Reading perspectives outside your usual algorithmic bubble can be a valuable exercise in growth.

Unfortunately, the book's title and cover felt like clickbait. With so little content dedicated to the events in Butler, it seems they were chosen purely to grab attention—and in my case, it worked.

Would I recommend this book? Not a chance. I feel like I could have learned more about Butler from its Wikipedia page. I would have given this book one star, but I feel I judged it harshly and it's just not my bag, baby.

Because of Salena Zito's reputation as a credible journalist, with bylines in The Washington Examiner (where she holds a post as political reporter), The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and on CNN, I looked forward to this book. I assumed that, even though Zito is clearly Republican, she had the integrity to at least try and produce an unbiased narrative. I was wrong. Zito spends much of this book talking about journalists who live in coastal cities and inside the Beltway as being ignorant of the way people think in small towns and rural areas in America's heartland. She uses this rationale to write most of the book as a love story to Donald Trump. She may be forgiven, I think, for writing the book as if she was one of his adoring fans from the heartland (she spends an inordinate amount of time talking about her interviews with Trump, where he praises her hair and her cowboy boots and calls her "my Salena", which to me came off as creepy). And, she is writing for her audience, people who are frustrated with media coverage they think leans left and ignores their needs.

But what cannot be forgiven, in my opinion, is glossing over facts in order to paint a more positive picture of Trump than exists in reality. An example is her citation of a report that showed Kamala Harris receiving 78% positive coverage during the presidential campaign, while Trump had 85% negative coverage on the same networks. She seems to forget that Trump was running for president after being convicted on 31 felony charges and was facing sentencing for those as well as trials for dozens of additional indictments (Trump's ongoing legal troubles, in fact, were never mentioned in this book). She talks about the lines of people waiting to get in to Trump rallies, but she never discusses the enthusiastic crowds and full arenas that greeted Kamala Harris. She mentions that Harris seemed to win their debate, but did not mention that Trump lost it by spouting conspiracy theories like "they're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats."

She also mentions nothing about the fact that many are still questioning what actually happened in Butler, citing the fact that his ear seemed to heal miraculously only a few days after the incident and other anomalies. To her, Trump was a true martyr, put in his position by God.

I also wonder what she thinks now, after nearly 6 months of Trump's presidency. The people who wanted lower grocery prices have seen only higher prices, American goods negatively affected by capricious tariffs, hundreds of people "disappeared" off the streets and into ICE detention facilities or CECOT despite the fact that they are in the country legally, and, most recently, the strangeness of the Epstein Files story. She also did not mention Trump's decreasing cognitive capabilities, his telling reporters he knows nothing of issues (whether he wasn't briefed or forgot, either is bad). I could go on, but I'm obviously displaying my own bias here.

I am reviewing this book not based on my own political opinions, however, but on Zito's journalistic integrity. Someone who spends so much time telling us what a good journalist she is should not stoop to telling a story that is this biased.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

A eye witness account of one of the lost moving and memorable events of the last election, Butler, is a must read!! I greatly enjoyed reading this book and seeing the behind the scenes insights from people who were there and had inside knowledge of the event. Salena Zito writes in a compelling and descriptive manner making you feel like you are right there with the action! I give this book 5 stars and highly recommend. I received a complimentary review copy of this book and am writing this review voluntarily.

Salina Zito is an accomplished journalist who can be trusted to report on the story without a skewed narrative! She will tell you the most comprehensive and compelling story of all the events and news stories she covers! “Butler” is no exception!
She follows President Trump and his journey from the Butler Farm Complex, in Pennsylvania during the presidential campaign and election! Her first hand account of the attempted assassination of Donald J Trump and her relationship with him as an interviewer is touching! It showed how Donald J Trump was a warm and caring individual! A man of the people.
She profiles the average voter, voting for Trump, in the general election as hard working, family oriented individuals! She tells her story of her upbringing in a small town near Butler County, Pennsylvania! The people of these small towns grew up, live and work not far from their hometowns! The towns like East Palestine, Slippery Rock, and surrounding Butler all felt forgotten and ignored by the Democratic Party! Voters in Illinois, Luzerne County and Western Pennsylvania changed the narrative and outcome of the presidential election!
Salina gives her perspective about why the main stream media is so out of touch, don’t understand, and ignore this demographic of people! Main stream media only care about the big city, high end voters that they can relate to!
This is a must read to understand and maybe agree with Salina’s opinion of the main stream media’s ignorance and most importantly the story of the historic assassination attempt of now President Trump!

I do not blame Salena Zito. If I had been a reporter, standing feet away from Donald John Trump when a disaffected loner tried and failed to blow his brains out on that fateful day in Butler, Pennsylvania, I would write a book about it. One hundred percent. (I was actually in a hotel room in Seattle at the time, doom-scrolling on Twitter.)

But Salena Zito was there, that day in Western Pennsylvania. (WARNING: There is so, so much about Western Pennsylvania in this book, so much that it spills over into Eastern Ohio.) She heard the shots, and got squished by the Secret Service agent in front of her. That is the primary story in the book, and the most valuable part of it.

What BUTLER is not, at all, is CASE CLOSED, the magisterial summary of the JFK assassination in Dallas. (I wasn't there for that one, either, not having been born yet, but my mother was there, on the parade route before the motorcade got to Dealey Plaza.) You will not learn anything about the shooter, or at least not anything more than what is publicly known, which is next to nothing. You will not learn anything about the startling, multiple failures of anyone involved to stop him from doing so. You will not learn anything about the investigation other than a large blockquote from the executive summary of the Congressional report. You will, in fact, learn much more about Salena Zito's hair and her cowboy boots than you will learn about any of those things.

BUTLER, for better or worse, is about Salena Zito. Psychology Today defines "main character syndrome" as "when somebody presents, or imagines, themself as the lead in a sort of fictional version of their life," and there is not a picture of Salena Zito in that article although you could make the argument that there ought to be. This is Salena Zito's book about Salena Zito, ace reporter, and her view of the 2024 campaign. There is a very long passage about Salena's fruitless attempts to interact with the (notoriously press-allergic) Kamala Harris campaign, which is fueled by nothing more and nothing less than yinzer outrage. Harris went to Primanti Brothers and threw out all the sandwich-eating regulars for a private party! Not nice! Harris went to a chi-chi frou-frou shopping district in Pittsburgh and didn't go to the macaroni shop! She went to the spice shop, and everyone knows the guy who owns that shop is crazy! There are pages of this stuff.

I will moderate my criticism here a little bit, in three aspects. Zito is a good reporter, and an iconoclast, and I respect her for that. She knows her part of the country. And she can actually write. She did a piece in 2017 about "cookie tables," and I encourage you to read that, it's fascinating.

But if I had to sit next to her on a cross-country flight? No thank you. I would be out on the wing hanging on for dear life, like one of the gremlins in the Twilight Zone. The whole book is like that, just Salena rattling on. (I am assuming this book was edited by someone at some point, but if it wasn't I would not be surprised.) My children use the term "yapping," which means what you think it does, and this is just a whole lot of yapping, you guys.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for inviting me to read and review this book.

I was not at all familiar with the work of Salena Zito, a veteran journalist, before reading this book. I found her narrative to be quite fascinating as she described how people live (and vote) in what some coastal self-appointed elites call "flyover country," and why their votes matter. And she described the apparent cluelessness of left-leaning members of the mainstream media as far as how they tend to categorize members of the public based on race, ethnicity, income, education, etc. For example, in their eyes black and Hispanic citizens are (or should be) all Democrats and will always vote that way. Those who choose to vote differently are often labeled "traitors." And Republicans are all mean-spirited Nazis. Reading these analyses in this book reminded me of the time a Democratic woman could not understand how a mutual friend could be a Republican because she's such a nice person.

As described in the synopsis published on Amazon, the author was able to interview many people including President Trump and many of his top associates. To quote, "Known for her on-the-ground reporting on populism and rural America, Salena zooms out to tell the fascinating story of the battle for America’s heartland and the issues that actually motivate voters. To understand how and why Trump won the 2024 election, you have to understand places like Butler. Big cities like Los Angeles, New York and D.C. don’t decide who wins election cycles, but people in places like Butler, Pennsylvania sure do."

All in all, a quite fascinating read. I highly recommend it.